


Everything Comes at a Price

by Rynfinity



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2550197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They catch Loki off-guard the next evening, Brock and a small horde of unsavory companions, as he returns from the taverns.  He is a bit tipsy.  Not at his best.</p><p>He is not nearly drunk enough, though, for what follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Comes at a Price

**Author's Note:**

> In which Ryn yet again creates an unholy mash-up of MCU and myth. Sorry?

The air inside the forge is thick with smoke. Everything reeks - and, by extension, tastes - of brimstone, to the extent he’s sure his food and drink will be tasting of sulfur for days. The smithy is a dark, ugly place, as is only fitting given its owner. As he waits Loki turns their recent conversation over and over in the privacy of his own head; it _seems_ an airtight bargain, if perhaps a bit hastily reached, but the set of Brock's smile (not to mention the glint in the dwarf's eye) is unnerving.

_It you win, you shall have my head._

A simple promise - as far as it goes, _for I promised you not the chance to harm my neck_ \- Loki thinks, carefully schooling his own expression into what he can be certain after long practice is one of pleasant neutrality, _and without that chance you scarce can get my head in order to keep it_.

Or to harm it, for that matter.

It is a good plan.

Still, try as he might, Loki cannot shake the nagging sense he's overlooking something.

~

The dwarf-crafted gifts themselves exceed all expectations. The dwarves draw upon tremendous power, more than perhaps even they know, and the items they craft reflect this. Especially when a god's head hangs in the balance, it seems. As he tucks each prize away - the boar, the ring, the spear, the hammer, and so forth, each as mighty as the last - Loki smiles pleasantly at Brock. "In a week's time you shall know," he tells the dwarf. "Do not try to cheat."

Brock dips his head in acknowledgment. His own smile is rather less pleasant. "I would say the same, princeling, but for how in a week's time you shan't have a head to cheat with."

Loki smiles more broadly to hide the muscle twitching in his cheek. "Ah, but we must wait and see, no?"

"Comfort yourself with that if you wish," Brock tells him, mocking, and it feels like a threat. Like a promise.

It is past time to be leaving, so Loki does.

~

As he expected, each gift is well and even lovingly received. By the end of his first day back in Asgard, he - well, all this gifting and bestowing upon - has done more to improve his standing than he might have thought possible.

Sif even stretches up to plant a kiss upon his cheek, for once _without_ whispering death threats in his ear.

His brother, predictably, is ecstatic. It will clearly be some time before Thor masters his new toy - although it _is_ no toy, a fact they would all do well to remember - but that does not dim his enthusiasm for trying.

Even Odin seems pleased. At least, he does not give voice to any displeasure. He says little enough, truth be told, which is not altogether uncommon. Loki elects – just this once - not to read into the old king's silence.

It is really only Frigga who reacts- a bit oddly. Her lovely smile, as she stands graciously by and watches the others with their new and precious things, seems strained. Almost forced. She accepts her gift - the ring – with polite thanks, but soon sets it almost absent-mindedly aside. And every now and again Loki turns suddenly to find her studying him, with a shrewd, considering expression.

Finally, as he prepares to take his leave of the festivities (he is planning to retire to his chambers and partake of some long-neglected reading), his mother corners him. This time Loki finds himself unable to sidestep her. Frigga takes hold of his arm and leans close. "What is it that you have done now, my darling," she asks, her voice pitched too low for the others to hear. "You cannot fool your own mother," she admonishes as he begins to protest. "Treasures such as these come at a price no one, not even a god, should willingly pay."

"Worry not," he assures her, even as his own body reacts with a degree of visceral fear he thought he'd long since rooted out and eradicated. "I have a plan."

"Oh, Loki," she says, delicate brows pinched together. "Surely this comes not as news to you, not by this late juncture: That is precisely _why_ I worry."

~

"Alas," Loki reminds Brock, flashing a toothy grin in the face of the dwarf's naked wrath, "you forgot to include the harming of my neck. You cannot collect, yet the bargain stands."

"Then I shall simply bash it in," Brock growls. "As a smith I can assure you: My aim is well more than precise enough to destroy your head while leaving your unwagered neck untrammeled."

Loki grins even more broadly. He has thought this through. Through and through and through. "Alas, braining me harms not only my head but every last fragment of my being. My neck, my shoulders, my heart, …" He gestures _and so forth_. "Need I spell it all out for you?"

Brock reaches up to pat Loki's cheek with force enough to border on slapping. "Such a smart child," the dwarf growls, and the choice of words - Loki is centuries past childhood; he is a god, and a _man_ , as this foul creature would do well not to forget - stings far more than the blow. "So deft with puzzles. _Do not_ mistake this for done."

~

 _You are not afraid_ , Loki reminds himself sternly as he makes his way to the library.

He is not. Is _not_. Not now, not ever.

~

They catch him off-guard the next evening, Brock and a small horde of unsavory companions, as Loki returns from the taverns. He is a bit tipsy. Not at his best.

He is not nearly drunk enough, though, for what follows.

"I think I speak for everyone," Brock tells him cheerfully, brandishing the thick, curved needle - the sort Frigga's ladies use when turning their loomwork into the finely-crafted upholstery that graces much of the palace... even, most likely, the garden bench cushion upon which Loki's sorry ass now rests - "when I say I have heard enough of your silver tongue to last me a lifetime."

Several of Brock’s companions hoot and clap.

Loki struggles, to no avail. The hands holding him steady grip hard, nearly as unbending as the heavy metal they make their masters a fine living forging.

The needle _hurts_.

The indignity - Brock's dirty thumb inside his very lips, the dwarf's boozy breath foul in his nostrils - hurts far more.

Even that is overshadowed, though, by the _burning_. There must be something on the lacing. Loki's heart pounds anew. He cannot suck in enough air through his nostrils alone. "You would not dare poison me," he forces out through gritted teeth. The effort costs him; opening his lips sufficiently to shape proper speech causes the first stitch to pull and his own flesh to tear.

Brock leans back a few inches and looks Loki square in the eye. "No," the dwarf says, laughing. "I _keep_ my bargains." He laughs all the harder. "But you may add some of your own later if you'd like."

All told it takes 27 stitches, out and back. Loki knows; he counted.

~

He keeps his hood up and his head down as he staggers as rapidly as possible into the palace proper and back to his chambers. The blood trickling under his chin and down his neck itches. _No matter_ , he reminds himself. It will be over soon.

Except it isn't.

Try as he might - and he _does_ try, oh does he ever - Loki cannot free himself.

He cannot cut the lacing, with either shears or sorcery. Not with the tip of a dagger, nor with the powerful snips he uses for cutting his brother out of bashed and crumpled armor.

Similarly, he cannot untie the knots; neither the last nor the first.

The lacing is thick enough, and the stitches spaces sufficiently closely, that he cannot manage the leverage needed to rip his own flesh instead.

What he _can_ do is irritate his mouth to such extent that it swells and bleeds anew. Afterwards the burning is so severe he can barely stand it.

Cold water boils. Cooling spells backfire, leaving both his entire face and the fingers of his casting hand temporarily bright pink and smarting.

By the time he gives up and succumbs to tears of frustration, Loki barely recognizes his own reflection in the gilded mirror above his basin.

Crying is no balm. His nose cannot keep up; it clogs, and for a few long, awful minutes Loki is sure he must be dying.

He isn’t. But by the end of what may be the longest night of his life, he nigh on wishes he had been.

~

The following morning it doesn't take long for Thor – not-so-fresh from a night of carousing himself, one hand fast around the short handle of that blasted hammer - to appear in his bedchambers. "You did not come down to the morning meal," Thor tells Loki, whose very, very sore face is hastily hidden beneath a pillow. "Are you alright?"

It comes as little surprise - this is _Thor_ , after all, and Loki might just have a history of lying - that a muffled "nnnph" fails to satisfy.

When Thor rips the pillow free of Loki's clutches and finally sees what there is to be seen, he screams.

And then _gags_ , and _that_ poses quite a problem. Loki thumps the bed with a fist and then shakes his head frantically. No no no!

Thor turns away to collect himself. "How did this happen," he asks at some length.

Loki rolls his eyes, the only things in his poor face that don't hurt enormously, at his brother's back. He isn't certain he can focus well enough to conjure something upon which to write; he waits for Thor to turn back to him instead and then pantomimes _pen and paper_.

"Oh, right, sorry," Thor tells him. His brother is still looking everywhere but at Loki, which is strangely satisfying.

Not nearly satisfying enough, though, to make up for the pounding headache or the burning, throbbing pain. Loki's face is afire. He reaches a tentative hand up; the skin between the stitches is tender and quite swollen, with ridges poking up here and there between the sutures. He chin and neck are crusted with dried blood and ooze.

"Do not-," Thor starts, wincing, as he comes over to hand off the writing implements. "Just do not _touch_ it."

Touching hurts. Loki does it anyway, solely to see Thor's face twist in misery.

"Who did this to you," his brother asks, once Loki has put pen to hand.

 _It seems I lost a bet_ , Loki scribbles.

"Aye," Thor agrees wholeheartedly. "That you did. Why did you not set yourself to rights?"

Ah, that's the question. _I cannot_ , he scrawls. _Ensorcelled?_

Thor's eyes go wide. Loki's not sure, but that might almost be a compliment. "I- I shall fetch mother."

Loki does his best angry impression, considering the pain and the substantial inconvenience being silenced poses. He bounces his pen off the back of Thor's head as his brother strides for the door. Once he's alone, though, Loki slumps to the floor, weak with pain and relief.

He does need Frigga. He isn't going to be able to stand this much longer.

~

"Loki, Loki," their mother admonishes, shaking her head sadly as she very gently tips his head from side to side. "I could take advantage of this rare opportunity to speak my mind uninterrupted, but I suspect you may well have already learned any lesson I could teach you on this particular matter."

He nods as best he can, between her hands and the floor. Tears pool and spill down the sides of his face. Frigga touches a particularly sore place and he cannot help but wriggle. "I am sorry," she offers quietly. "This is some powerful sorcery, my son. None of what I must do to free you will go down easy."

She is not wrong.

~

Thor has to be banished to Loki’s antechamber, and then finally off to his own rooms, because he cannot stomach Loki’s muffled, through-the-nose screaming.

At first, his brother’s enraged stomping around – his vowing to kill every dwarf in Svartalfheim - Norns be damned, is rather pleasing. Loki can only tolerate the noise so long, though. Once it becomes altogether too much Frigga makes Thor leave.

~

Even pain is ultimately boring. When thinking fails to distract him sufficlently, Loki uses the sun through his windows as a guide and amuses himself tracking the passage of time.

Several hours creep slowly, slowly past before Frigga at long last has the first knot undone. “I cannot cut this,” she apologizes, running a finger lightly over the stitchwork. I shall have pull each stitch back out the way it came.”

Loki shudders, with his whole body – the top of his head to the tips of his toes. He sucks in a huge breath through his nostrils and nods.

Frigga summons herself a small container. She dips two fingers in and smears the bowl’s contents liberally across Loki’s mangled lips, coating sutures and skin alike.

Relief, finally. Sweet, sweet relief. At any other time he would be quite horrified by the sensation that his entire face from the cheekbones down has vanished, so completely is it numbed.

Not today.

Today that numbness is the most blessed of blessings.

~

He barely feels the tugging, or the burning, as Frigga painstakingly works the stitching free.

“There,” she says at last, wiping her bloodstained hands on a cloth and rolling her shoulders. “Let me see: Can you open your mouth?”

The sound he makes is nothing like speech. “No no,” she corrects hastily. “Do not try to say anything. Just open.” He struggles to remember how he normally opens his mouth, given that he still cannot feel it. “Good,” she says; he must have managed. “Now, you must rest. I am going to give you something to help you sleep. When you wake up, you will be in the Healers’ rooms.”

“Why,” he tries to say. It sounds more like _ngah_.

She is his mother. She will understand.

Frigga looks down at him fondly. “We need to get- this,” she says, waving a hand to encompass most of his face, “properly treated or it will scar dreadfully. Here,” she goes on as she reaches a hand to his wounded mouth, “do not try to chew. Let it melt on your tongue. And good night.”

Loki cannot feel whatever she has given him, but it is so sour his mouth waters. “Count down from a thousand,” his mother tells him. “Silently, I mean. In your own mind.”

He gets to 997. At least, that’s the last thing he remembers.

~

“You’re a mess,” Thor grumbles from behind him as Loki studies himself in the mirror. Everything is healed, meaning he’s no longer _full of holes_ , but there’s still a surprising amount of swelling and most of his face is a sea of yellowing bruises. “Was it worth it?”

Loki stretches his neck and leans closer to the glass, enough that he can see Thor’s new war hammer resting just inside the doorway. “Only time will tell,” he says to his brother, “but I think so.”


End file.
